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It is not possible to get an exact number for the UK as Scotland and Northern Ireland do not publish reasons for children being in care.

Children can also become looked after because:

a child is disabled

a parent is ill or disabled

there are other family problems

or because the parents are absent (for example, unaccompanied asylum seekers).

Looked-after children also include children who are looked after on a voluntary basis at the request of, or by agreement with, their parents. It also includes children who are looked after for short periods of time, such as respite care.

In Scotland, children in the criminal justice system are also counted as looked after children.

Numbers of children in care in the UK have risen steadily in recent years

Source: Calculation based on published statistics for looked-after children in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales for 2010-15.

Explanation: The total number of children in care in the UK has increased every year since 2010. The number of looked after children in the UK has increased from 88,063 at 31 March 2010 to 93,319 at 31 March 2015 (31 July in Scotland); an overall increase of 6%.

The number of children entering care has increased every year since 2011. In 2010/2011 34,975 children started to be looked after in the UK, in 2014/15 this had increased to 38,147; an overall increase of 9%.

Making the decision to take a child into care

Children who come in to care are often known to social services for a number of years before action is taken (Masson et al, 2008).

For many children the need to enter care could have been identified at a much earlier stage. For too many children this delay in decision-making prolongs their experiences of abuse and neglect. On entry to care these children experience greater degrees of difficulty and the specialist services they require are less likely to have an impact (Davies and Ward, 2012).

What works

improve decision-making about when it is in a child's best interests to enter care

ensure that decisions are well planned and taken in a timely fashion.

Achieving these aims requires a rethink of how we support children and families on the edge of care, and how we make decisions about when it is in a child's best interest to enter care. We need:

greater use of multi-agency approaches to assessment and support for children and families on the edge of care

revised training for social workers and other practitioners to ensure an improved understanding of: child development, the identification of risk and protective factors and parental capacity to change

improvements in undergraduate and post-qualification training to ensure that social workers and other professionals are also able to develop a better understanding of the impact of care and effective interventions

greater effort to ensure stability for children and young people on the edge of care and following their entry to care.

Care proceedings in the UK

Find out how care proceedings work from pre-proceedings to the granting of a care order in each of the four nations:

England

Northern Ireland

Scotland

Wales

We're piloting the New Orleans Intervention Model to help professionals make robust and timely decisions. First developed in the USA, this service helps social workers and judges decide whether a child should stay with their birth family or enter care permanently.

Our aim is to help reunite the child with their family where possible, or place them permanently into care if not.

More about children in care

Emotional wellbeing and mental health

How we're supporting the emotional wellbeing and mental health of children in care